IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/4046.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Labour Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in a Middle-Income Country: Evidence from Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Kugler, Adriana D.
  • Kugler, Maurice

Abstract

We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyse how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980s and 1990s affected the labour market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This ‘less-than-full-shifting’ is likely to be the result of weak linkages between benefits and taxes and the presence of downward wage rigidities induced by a binding minimum wage in Colombia. Because the costs of taxation are only partly shifted from employers to employees, employment should also fall. Our results indicate that a 10% increase in payroll taxes lowered formal employment by between 4% and 5%. In addition, we find less shifting and larger disemployment effects for production than non-production workers. These results suggest that policies aimed at boosting the relative demand of low-skill workers by reducing social security taxes on those with low earnings may be effective in a country like Colombia, especially if tax cuts are targeted to indirect benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Kugler, Adriana D. & Kugler, Maurice, 2003. "The Labour Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in a Middle-Income Country: Evidence from Colombia," CEPR Discussion Papers 4046, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=4046
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin Lang, 2003. "The Effect of the Payroll Tax on Earnings: A Test of Competing Models of Wage Determination," NBER Working Papers 9537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Adriana Kugler & Juan F. Jimeno & Virginia Hernanz, "undated". "Employment Consequences of Restrictive Permanent Contracts: Evidence from Spanish Labor Market Reforms," Working Papers 2003-14, FEDEA.
    3. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Maloney, William F., 2005. "Labor demand and trade reform in Latin America," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 423-446, July.
    4. B Bell & Stephen Nickell, 1996. "Would Cutting Payroll Taxes on the Unskilled Have a Significant Effect on Unemployment?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0276, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Nickell, Stephen & Layard, Richard, 1999. "Labor market institutions and economic performance," Handbook of Labor Economics,in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 46, pages 3029-3084 Elsevier.
    6. Jonathan Gruber & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "The Incidence of Mandated Employer-Provided Insurance: Lessons from Workers' Compensation Insurance," NBER Chapters,in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 111-144 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Adriana Kugler, 1999. "The Impact of Firing Costs on Turnover and Unemployment: Evidence from the Colombian Labour Market Reform," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 389-410, August.
    8. repec:bin:bpeajo:v:3:y:1972:i:1972-2:p:385-421 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Gruber, Jonathan, 1997. "The Incidence of Payroll Taxation: Evidence from Chile," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(3), pages 72-101, July.
    10. Holmlund, Bertil, 1983. " Payroll Taxes and Wage Inflation: The Swedish Experience," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 1-15.
    11. Angrist, Joshua D, 1996. "Short-Run Demand for Palestinian Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 425-453, July.
    12. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-641, June.
    13. Kugler, Maurice & Rosenthal, Howard, 2000. "Checks and balances: an assessment of the institutional separation of political powers in Colombia," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0018, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    14. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    15. Maurice Kugler & Howard Rosental, 2000. "Checks and balances: an assessment of the institutional separtion of political powers in Colombia," WORKING PAPERS SERIES. DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO 002117, FEDESARROLLO.
    16. Robert J. Gordon, 1972. "Wage-Price Controls and the Shifting Phillips Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, pages 385-430.
    17. Beach, Charles M & Balfour, Frederick S, 1983. "Estimated Payroll Tax Incidence and Aggregate Demand for Labour in the United Kingdom," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 35-48, February.
    18. Tullio, Giuseppe, 1987. "Long run implications of the increase in taxation and public debt for employment and economic growth in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 741-774, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    minimum wages; payroll taxes; shifting; wage rigidity;

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4046. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.